


Candy Corn Liquor

by InsomniaAndTea



Category: Homestuck, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: Mobsterswitched
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-20
Updated: 2012-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:56:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/324082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsomniaAndTea/pseuds/InsomniaAndTea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are Deadeye Detective. Someone has just tried to murder one of your crew. What do you do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candy Corn Liquor

**Author's Note:**

> May contain hints of headcannon. This is most noticeable in the fact that the entire Meddlesome Company is female.

You are Deadeye Detective, and you are absolutely furious. This has lead to you standing outside with your third cigarette of the night, because the hospital does not like it when you smoke inside, where you partner Cheerful Demolitionist is slowly coming off the effects of highly illegal candy corn liqueur.

Heavy Brawler is ostensibly more upset than you; she has scarcely left Demolitionist alone for even a moment, going so far as to argue with the nurses about when visiting hours are over. You pitied the poor nurse attempting to argue with Brawler, who is big in both body and voice, but you did not pity her enough to step in and get the rest of the Meddlesome Company to go home.

You know that Snooping Scout must be still inside, stalking the corridors as she snarls expletives to the air. She most likely feels guilty because she was the one to bring Demolitionist her drink, and she never noticed anything wrong. In time, you will find Scout, punch her at least once in a relatively painful place, and tell her to get over herself. This was a calculated hit, and if Scout had been able to tell, then she was in the wrong fucking business. Detectives are generally not hired to prevent murder.

But for now, you stand and smoke outside as a thunderstorm threatens to break over your head. You are thinking of many things, but chief among them is the fact that no one gets away with harming any of your crew.

\--

You had been lucky, the doctors said. Candy corn liqueur was dangerous even to those with very high imaginations. You had been lucky that Cheerful Demolitionist already had such a high imagination stat, that you had eventually managed to make an absolutely terrible fort of tables and bar stools, that you were in Old Town where imagination is present a little bit even in the real world, which helped to allow Demolitionist to drain off some of her excess. Apparently, all these factors combined allowed Demolitionist to pull through the night relatively unharmed. 

You do not trust luck, and you will not chance something like this happening a second time.

It is a long investigation, starting with the bartender and steadily working from there. You call in a few favors, you do a few things that the Fuzz would disapprove of, but eventually you find your man. Two months of digging, and you turn up the Unsavory Doctorate, whom you had previously nailed for running a rather lucrative but highly illegal back alley practice.

And after two months of digging and another poisoning attempt, you still do not have enough evidence.

Captain Snowman looks dispassionately at you over her desk, and you resist grinding your teeth together. The man has been too careful, too quiet, and you cannot make a decent case against him. Captain Snowman is most likely making the right call; you cannot try him in court with such a flimsy case. You know that he was working with or for another party on the first attempt, but you do not know who. You cannot even find the liqueur bottle used for the first poisoning. You cannot connect him to the later poisoning with court admissible evidence. If the case fails in court, the man will disappear, and his contacts will be warned. There is nothing the police can do.

\--

You are not the police.

You are on a rooftop with a gun you thought you had packed away long ago. It is an old model, older than the town, which you can prove indisputably, seeing as how you were here when the first buildings were erected. There are many stories told about this gun, and about the person who wielded it.

That person died a long time ago, the stories say.

Urban legends are all that survives.

You take a deep breath, note the wind, and gaze down the scope. The Unsavory Doctorate is leaving his building, perhaps half a mile away. He will not admit to his crimes, and you will never legally catch him for them.

How very sad for him.

\--

It is ten minutes later, and you are lighting a fresh cigarette in front of the shop of a tailor who is willing to swear that you have just spent the last thirty minutes getting your suit repaired and talking shop. A nearly invisible newly sewn seam collaborates your story, should anyone attempt to question further.

Across the way and further down the street, the Unsavory Doctorate is being loaded into an ambulance. You coolly assess that he has perhaps a fifty percent chance of surviving, although he will most likely never fully recover.

A man walks by and pauses, taking in the scene. You watch from under the brim of your hat as his head swings back and forth, taking in the Fuzz’s forensic team examining the bullet hole, and towards the city, working out the angles.

“That must have been quite the shot,” he says quietly, shading his eyes. “I’ve only heard of one man making a shot like that, and I have been assured that he’s dead. Hasn’t been a marksman like him for over one hundred years.”

You glance over at him coolly, taking a drag on your cigarette. His suit is just a bit too short for his gangly limbs, and your fingers twitch in either the desire to strangle him for this offense against fashion or in the desire to let his hems down. You reluctantly approve of his hat, though, a smart bowler with a narrow purple hatband the same color as his eyes.

Finally, you shrug. “I’ve heard the stories,” you say off-handedly. “Urban legends. Never really get the details straight.”

He looks at you disconcertingly, a faint smile twitching across his lips. “Such as?” he asks politely.

“I’ve heard that he was never that great, that he never existed, that he was a she and the queen of Prospit to boot. At the very least, if no one was ever his equal, we wouldn’t be seeing this,” you say, nodding at the scene across the street. You check your watch. “Forgive me, but I must be going,” you say briskly. “I need to check on a friend.”

He nods considerately. “I understand, Detective,” he says. “Do give my regards to Miss Demolitionist; I was quite pleased to hear she had recovered.”

You smoothly spin around, right hand dipping into your jacket pocket, but the man has already disappeared. The air tastes faintly of copper and electricity, and the last bits of purple fire disappear into the air as you watch.

But he left behind a present: a small, bow-bedecked evidence bag containing a bottle of candy corn liqueur, previously opened.


End file.
